Seven Suggested Summer Reading Books

Whether you need something to do on that twelve hour plane flight, made a resolution to read more these next few months, or simply have more free time now that you're no longer enduring a harrowing school year, summer is a great time for finding new books to check out (isn't every part of the year?). Check out some of these books that Blueshift Journal staff members have recently read and loved!

The Secret History of Wonder Woman by Jill Lepore

recommended by sarah linton, director of social media

Part biography, part origin story, and part feminist text, The Secret History of Wonder Woman brings a whole new perspective to the gestation of America’s most popular female superhero. Lepore’s book is unique in that she uses William Moulton Marston, Wonder Woman’s creator, not as a topic but as mechanism for examining her main subject. The text rises above for the fascinating parallels drawn between specific instances in Marston’s life later that he wove into early comic book issues as fantasies, reimaginings—open secrets except for comic book consumers never drawing the parallels. Lepore’s research is extensive and well substantiated, and her discussion of Wonder Woman as not only a figure in comics, but also an emblem of Marston’s progressive and feminist ideologies is easily one of the most compelling books I’ve read in a long time.

Topdog, Underdog by Suzan-Lori Parks

recommended by chris li, blog reporter

It’s a quick read, but my god it is riveting. Topdog, Underdog is the transcript of a two-person play, with characters Lincoln and Booth: sound familiar? It’s a story about life, more importantly the life of these two brothers and their encounters within their small apartment. They tackle race, poverty, gambling, and a whole slew of other problems alluding to the connotations of their names. Suzan-Lori Parks does so much with so little, making you fall in love with the characters and feel their pain, suffering, happiness, and everything in between. If you’re looking for a short gut buster, Parks’ gem won’t disappoint.

You Deserve Nothing by Alexander Maksik

recommended by emma henson, prose reader

Maksik’s novel is about a cult-type (think Dead Poets Society) teacher, Will Silver, at the International School of Paris. The novel follows his gradual unraveling as he begins an affair with a student, Marie. Told in three alternating points of view, it's an exciting examination of education, teenagers, power roles, growing up, and Paris. I loved the novel for subtlety with which Will's character is developed. He becomes an unreliable narrator so masterfully that you're almost on his side, almost caught up in the madness along with him. I was fascinated with his style of teaching, and how it highlighted the intellectual and existential validity of what we as young people have to say. The writing style is also impressive—short words and short sentences, but somehow more evocative than entire paragraphs I've read before.

The History of Love by Nicole Krauss

recommended by sarah linton, director of social media

“Then he almost but didn't say the two sentence he'd been meaning to say for years: part of me is made of glass, and also, I love you…” At the very least, The History of Love is a book of beautiful word arrangements, each which deserve their own picture frames; at the very best, it is a breathtaking story about loneliness, connections, the power of words, and, of course, love. Fourteen year old Alma Singer and the elderly Leo Gursky have nothing in common except for a book which means a great deal to both of them, and the subsequent pages are a marvelous study of this intersection. Krauss’s book is wandering, but not in a beleaguering sense—I was happily there for every step of the journey she takes you on. The ordinariness of the novel, coupled with its extraordinary and indescribable poetic language, is precisely what makes it so wonderful.

Swamplandia! by Karen Russell

recommended by sima federova, poetry reader

The plot follows the life of Bigtree family members who run an alligator show on a Floridian island. When tragedy strikes in the form of death, business competition, and ghosts, the characters are scattered across the Everglades, each one trying to solve the ensuing problems on their own. It’s easy to read and fast paced. Russell writes about issues such as coming of age, grief, and love in ways that are both creative and eerie. The descriptions and themes switch between macabre and mature to whimsical and innocent. If you’re into this kind of magical realism, also check out her short stories such as “St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves.”

Tropic of Orange by Karen Tei Yamashita

recommended by chris li, blog reporter

For me, what makes a book memorable is its characters. When an author like Karen Tei Yamashita brings you to tears and has you shouting “Go!” until the last page, all due to a recurrent string of black ink, you know there is something magical going on. Tropic of Orange did that for me. The book seems disjointed at first, jumping, in third person limited, between characters all bound by the city of Los Angeles. As the pages turn, magical realism reminiscent of Gabriel Garcia Marquez takes form with a hint of noir fiction, and the line between what’s real and what’s not disappears, until the reader realizes that the line never mattered. Give Ms. Yamashita’s work twenty minutes, and I can promise it will be hard to put it down — it’s a tough read, but you won’t regret the struggle.

Shadow of a Cloud but No Cloud by Killarney Clary

recommended by sarah linton, director of social media

Clary's self described intention, with this prose poetry collection, was to "suggest a narrative that will not resolve." I'd say she more than succeeds; the poems in this series are unnumbered and untitled, the people in them are unnamed, making for a resonantly unsettling premise even in conception. Clary's subsequent execution is exemplary. From the brief sketch of the speaker and her discontent companion's unanswerable pursuits ("Maybe he broke his resolve, gave himself over to involuntary muscles to keep from choking on the stream of marvel...") to a somber yet personable description of a girl musing over love she does not have in a supermarket ("Bitterly, the word comes— silly. She is chilled and losing. The list is numbered"), each minute story is satisfying even in its incompleteness.

images courtesy of amazon.com

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